Joe Nacca: Tax reform and the lawn ranger

Tuesday

Oct 10, 2017 at 2:00 PM

Joe Nacca

The federal tax code is a 75,000-page maze. It is in dire need of reform and simplification. The average citizen should be able to understand and trust it. Arcane loopholes and carve-outs need to be eliminated. At present, the congressional majority party and the president are proposing reforms. You may have heard about that.

It is possible that you want to know the details of these so-called reforms. You may be curious as to how they will affect you personally and the country at large. You may want them explained in ways that you can understand. You may want to hear/read some objective, rational debate laying out the pros and cons of various proposed changes. As a taxpaying citizen, you deserve that much.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer offers you this helpful comment — the Republican plan is "a massive windfall for the wealthiest Americans." So much for his thoughtful analysis of the proposal to double the standard deduction for the middle income tax filer.

Vermont senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, proving himself to be a witty punster, says that the tax plan should be called "wealth-fare." And there you have his helpful insight into the suggested reduction to three tax brackets. And there also you have a perfect illustration of demagoguery in the guise of leadership.

You turn to your local newspaper for something more enlightening. On Sept. 29, you come across an editorial first published in the Middletown Times-Herald Record. It begins with this balanced — not — headline: “Simplified tax plan lacks truth, details." The editorial then proceeds — surprise, surprise — to vilify President Trump as being a selfish simpleton. If you dislike Trump, you may enjoy this barrage of venom. At any rate, you are learning little about the substance of the tax plan.

Eventually, the editorial does actually get to the plan itself. It scorns several of its details, which we were informed in the headline were lacking. It offers little in the way of explanation and certainly no acknowledgement that there may be any room for debate. It criticizes the plan for likely adding to the national debt, which it says is "$14.6 trillion and growing." Perhaps you question that number, and you would be right to do so. The national debt is actually $19.8 trillion and growing. The editorial neglects to point out that Sen. Schumer recently joined the president in cutting a deal to raise the debt ceiling. This could use some explanation, but you won't get it here.

And so it goes. Partisanship and small-minded personal attacks — from all sides, I hasten to add — rule the day. Politicians and media members demonize and polarize rather than explain. They refuse to dignify the intelligence of the citizenry to make its own decisions based on a reasonable presentation of pros and cons. They proclaim their respect for the common man and woman, but they show no faith in your ability to draw your own conclusions. In truth, they insult you and diminish themselves.

Last week, I encountered an acquaintance as he was mowing fairways at a local golf course. He stopped the mower for a minute to watch the Inquiring Taxpayer abuse an innocent Titleist and to tell me that he had filled out a federal 1040 tax form using some proposed figures from the Republican plan. He applied the figures to a hypothetical $25,000 wage earner. He said that that person would pay $80 more in taxes than under the current tax structure.

As my friend motored down the fairway, it struck me that he had involved himself more thoughtfully and meaningfully in the current discussion on tax reform than Sen. Schumer, Sen. Sanders and the Times Herald-Record editorial writer combined.

And while I still have many questions concerning the Republican tax plan, I have little doubt that the wrong person is on the lawn mower.

Joe Nacca, of Canandaigua, is a frequent Messenger Post contributor.

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